Elucia de Lute Ima
Character Overview Elucia de Lute Ima (エリュシア・デ・ルート・イーマ, Eryushia De Ruuto Īma), also known as Elsie (エルシィ, Erushī), is the female deuteragonist in The World God Only Knows. She is a Devil from new Hell, and is over 300 years old (Even though her appearance suggests she's around 17 and her personality is yet only 10 to 12). She is an agent of the Runaway Spirit Retrieval Squad to capture escaped spirits. Her partner, or "buddy", is Keima Katsuragi, who is the protagonist of the series. She is currently pretending to be Keima's illegitimate half-sister. She has a fondness towards fire trucks. Appearance Elsie has long dark hair, which she frequently keeps in a ponytail. When not in school with Keima, she is usually seen wearing a purple short skirt kimono with light-purple toe less long socks and wooden sandals. Elsie has a pink robe, called a hagoromo, that she can use to change her appearance into almost anything. Like other Runaway Spirit Retrieval Squad members, she keeps the runaway spirit sensor on the side of her head, making it look like an accessory. When at school, she wears the normal Mai-High uniform with pink thigh-high socks. Since she is now posing as Kanon, Elsie has apparently cut her hair short and designed her hair to look like the latter also. Personality Elsie is a happy-go-lucky individual, in sharp contrast with Keima 's cold, efficient, detached demeanor, and maintains an optimistic personality. Despite claiming to be 300 years old, she has the mentality of an incompetent teenager, which she resembles, and is in many aspects less mature than Keima . Although she is earnest and hardworking, she is infamously bad at virtually everything but cooking and cleaning, having been stuck on cleaning duty for hundreds of years; the only reason that she is now on the Runaway Spirit Squad is entirely because Hell is experiencing a personnel crisis and has every available hand recruited. As a result, she received little training, and constantly fails to provide proper support during conquests, although this could also be explained by her airheadedness. Although she is often insulted and derided by Keima (for reasons ranging from having an uninteresting personality not befitting of a sidekick to simply being an idiot), she is seldom ever hurt genuinely. Elsie easily passes for Keima's real sister, and in fact has been accepted by society as such very easily. Several chapters insinuate that her feelings for Keima are not quite platonic (seeing as she isn't his real sister anyway), but as Keima has yet to produce significant feelings for anybody, much less a real girl; this has yet to play out. Elsie has only been genuinely hurt by her incompetence (which she is intelligent enough to recognize) when she felt powerless because of it, but Keima was able to restore her confidence. She is usually willing to comply with Keima's often incomprehensible demands, obviously possessing a deep level of trust in him; additionally, she usually refers to him as "Kami-nii-sama,"(Literally meaning Divine brother.) in a bizarre deference to his status as "Capturing God" and her "older brother." While in Hell, she lived in the shadow of her older sister, who is a famous and an accomplished spirit hunter. This, coupled with her infamous idiocy, has made her a laughing stock in hell. Ironically, she has been amongst the most successful of the members of the Retrieval Squad and in fact earned the prestigious Section Chief's Award. She possesses a comedic obsession with fire trucks, as well as with the popular idol, Kanon. Abilities Despite her genuine good nature, she is initially treated by Keima as a nuisance for her incompetence, which applies even to things that she is supposedly good at. Despite being supposedly good at cleaning (and in fact possessing a magical broom with advanced cleaning capabilities), and actually cleaning some locations very well and out of sheer force of habit, she has also destroyed areas (including the neighbor's house) using her broom. Similarly, despite being good at cooking, she only knows to cook with dangerous ingredients from hell, often producing recipes that are alive and at least somewhat murderous, such as a bento (boxed lunch) that later eats a dragon. And, of course, despite claiming to have been the top of her class in Japanese history, it turns out that she is only aware of Japanese history up to the point of the opening of Japan in 1854 by American Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Nevertheless, she possesses skill with performing magic using her robe, the hagoromo, and has used it to create various objects and perform various actions, such as drilling through the roof of the school library, producing a train engine carriage to be pulled by a bicycle, and turning invisible. She has also been shown to capture most spirits with ease, though the few that escaped her were overwhelmingly powerful. Additionally, she is capable of flying (possibly an ability granted by the hagoromo), and usually is able to clean areas to sparkling, almost new, conditions (when she is not annihilating them). She is notoriously bad at academics, even when she was in Hell. Additionally, she makes basic mistakes all the time, such as accidentally mistaking the Squad Manual for a cookbook. Aside from such abilities, she is also shown to have memorized all of Kanon's songs and dance routines, allowing her to successfully take Kanon's place as an idol while the latter is lying in a magical coma. Since she is capable of producing Kanon's songs without any suspicions, she may be a competent singer as well. She is also a member of Chihiro's light music band, the 2-B Pencils, where she plays left-handed bass. Whether she is actually any good at the bass remains to be seen. Another positive point Elsie has is that she can fit in any social environment relatively easy. This is shown when she quickly became a member of the Katsuragi family. Even Keima once commented on her ability to fit in with others. She could even pass by as a regular human... Plot Overview As a main character, she has been a major part of virtually every chapter throughout the series, albeit usually playing a role not much bigger than somebody who produces magic for Keima's use. Nevertheless, as the series progresses, it is widely insinuated that her feelings for Keima are growing beyond mere (fake) brother-sister, particularly emphasized during her faux-date with Keima at Desney Sea. She is currently posing as Kanon Nakagawa while Keima attempts to find a Goddess to save Kanon's life. Relationships Family Members Keima Katsuragi The pair has a highly interesting dynamic that is difficult to interpret due to Keima's multi-layered character. Initially Keima rejected her as his younger sister, but it is clear that as the series has continued he has come to accept and become used to Elsie's presence. Although Keima often criticizes Elsie's flaws, such as possessing a limited and faulty knowledge of the situation, in addition to making often ridiculous mistakes (such as setting her books on fire while studying), he seems to accept working with Elsie. Elsie cares deeply for Keima's well-being; a large motivating factor in her desire to complete the contract is her wish to prevent Keima from being beheaded. She goes to great lengths to secure his happiness (although she usually fails). Several chapters also insinuate that she may be feeling more than platonic feelings for Keima. This is seen when she gets flustered when Keima practice confessing on her during Mio's arc, and when she gets upset on seeing the models of Haqua and Keima doing obscene things at the end of Haqua's arc. It is also made most apparent during the date she and Keima were forced to go on by the rest of the 2-B Pencils, during which she shows signs of cheering up until Keima nonchalantly tells her that they are not actually on a date. Otherwise the pair work together well: Elsie has rarely been genuinely upset with him for any significant period of time, despite his bad-mannered demeanor. Mari Katsuragi Despite having entered her life as her husband's illegitimate daughter, Mari Katsuragi seems to have accepted Elsie very easily. Aside from noting the positive influence Elsie seems to be having on Keima, Mari seems to genuinely consider Elsie her adoptive daughter, scolding Elsie when she disappeared for an evening (to try and gather information on the next capture target) out of concern for her safety. She considers Elsie a great help around the house besides. The Extended Katsuragi Family Elsie seems to easily fit in with the extended Katsuragi family during their trip to the countryside to pay their respects to their ancestors. Her presence there is only questioned once and consequently waved off. Unnamed Sister Even though this character has yet to appear, Elsie clearly respects her a great deal and wishes to emulate her, feeling no resentment from living in her shadow her entire life. Friends 2-B Pencils Ayumi and Chihiro are Elsie's best friends at school. The rare occasions when Elsie is not with Keima or performing some task for Keima are often spent with the 2-B Pencils, an all-girl band started by Chihiro soon after her conquest by Keima. Both Ayumi and Chihiro care about Elsie's well-being and are exceedingly delighted when Keima asks for their advice to help cheer Elsie up. Keima also states that Ayumi and Chihiro are even closer to Elsie in some ways than he is. She also seems to be reasonably good friends with the other members of the band, Miyako Terada and Yui Goidō. Haqua du Lot Herminium Haqua was in the same graduating class as Elsie, although she graduated at the top rather than barely passing. Although Haqua initially treats Elsie in a patronizing manner, it is quickly obvious that, despite their differences, they are clearly good friends. Haqua later makes a habit of visiting the Katsuragis' (although it is likely that seeing Keima is at least part of her motivation), usually to talk to Elsie. Elsie respects Haqua a great deal, even though she has seen that Haqua is no longer the perfect valedictorian she has always claimed to be. Fiore Loderia Lavigneri Fiore was a classmate of Elsie and Haqua back when they were in school in hell. She and Haqua were a fierce rivals who competed for number one spot, while Elsie was regarded as dunce in school. Others Class of 2-B It is unknown whether Elsie has any friends at school beyond the 2-B Pencils and her "older brother," but when Elsie initially appeared, several boys in the class expressed mock outrage at Keima, asking where he had been hiding such a cute younger sister. Interestingly, despite her obsession with Kanon, she does not interact with Kanon beyond asking for an autograph. Docrow Skull Docrow Skull, despite being Elsie's superior and extremely aware of her bumbling ways, nevertheless treats her fairly and with respect. Nora Floriann Leoria Nora was a senpai back when Elsie was still in school in hell. As a senpai, Nora was regularly bullying Elsie, hence why Elsie was eager to get back at senpai's who were harrasing Ayumi. Though Nora is 10 years older, Haqua states that it isn't a big deal. Trivia * On a web poll where people from over the world could vote for their favorite Kaminomi female character, Elsie came out first and was placed on the cover of Volume 11. * Elsie is one of the few Kaminomi characters that is left-handed. This can be seen when she plays the bass for the 2-B Pencils. * A shorthand of her name is "94". * Despite her skill at making food from hell, which tastes terrible to humans, Elsie could actually cook normal food when she decides to make Keima miserable with her cooking. * Elsie marks the end of her broom as a "spirit-counter". One stroke represents a single capture while a much thicker line represents ten. A good example can be seen in chapter 102, page 7 in the upper-rightmost panel, where she has already captured 13 spirits, shown by one thick line and three regular strokes. * Ironically, despite being bad at almost virtually everything, Elsie has gotten the most number of spirits among the Runaway Spirit Retrieval Squad almost solely due to Keima. * She is currently replacing Kanon's place due to vintage events. It is also shown in the extra that Kanon's popularity decreasing a little bit due to Elsie's hellian answers. * A recurring joke is her love and fascination with firetrucks. * In the oneshot of TWGOK, Elsie had a more buxom body and wore more revealing clothes. Her hairstyle was a little different from her current look, and she carried a scythe instead of a broom. * She competed in the ISML league where she got the most votes among the first four girls from TWGOK representative. Quotes * Elsie has a tendency to say small cries such as "Hau~" or "Awah~" whenever she's troubled. * (Keima to Elsie) Keima: "When humans head into battle, they prefer using a familiar weapon! My mind is made up! I will continue to follow the gaming world's tenets! As I do real world battles!" Elsie: "Uhh, I don't get it, but that's so samurai, Kami-sama!" (Season 1, Episode 3) * (To Haqua) "I'm totally useless so I think nii-sama is amazing."(Chapter 144, p.13) * (To Keima) "Even if you say they lose their memories, that doesn't mean they'll return to the same as before because the crevice in their hearts are filled." (Chapter 30, p.8) * (To Keima) "It's not curry, it's a curse!" (Chapter 43, p.15 and Chapter 112b, p.7) * (To Keima) "Which "normal" are we talking about?" (Chapter 108, p.6) Elcea de Lut Ima Category:Runaway Spirit Squad Member Category:Female Characters Category:2-B Pencils Category:Featured Articles Category:Demons